DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival takes place annually in February in Helsinki, Finland. The next festival will be held on Feb 3–8, 2026.
DocPoint is one of the largest documentary festivals in the Nordic countries. In Finland, it is the only festival solely dedicated to nonfiction films. Once a year it brings more than a hundred of the best and most talked-about creative documentary films from all over the world and Finland to the screens of Helsinki.
Finnish association DocPoint-elokuvatapahtumat ry was established in 2001 with the ideological approach to enhance and diversify documentary films, while also ensuring their status and knowledge in Finland.
DocPoint-elokuvatapahtumat ry organizes various events – DocPoint Helsinki Documentary Film Festival, the documentary film tour for children and teens called DOKKINO and a documentary impact-producing-project called DocPoint IMPACT.
DocPoint Festival
DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival
DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival takes place annually in January in Helsinki, Finland. The next festival will be held on Feb 3–8, 2026.
The films in DocPoint’s international selections are Finnish premieres. They range from festival hits to experimental gems for smaller audiences. DocPoint has no open call for international films, the selection is curated by the Artistic Director and by invitation only. Information on domestic submissions will be posted annually on the festival’s website.
DocPoint aims to broaden the understanding of its audiences as to what’s happening in the world, to discuss and engage with the state of humanity and the environment – and to feature the varied ways of telling stories and interpreting the world through nonfiction filmmaking.
DocPoint supports equality and diversity, and aims to evolve into an ecologically sustainable film festival. DocPoint wishes to generate ideas, bring forth discussion and create communality, in the form of film screenings, panel discussions and industry events.
DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival is organized by DocPoint-elokuvatapahtumat association.
History
The first DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival was held in 2000 out of the influence of various prominent figures in the Finnish documentary industry, who wanted to enhance and ensure the status of documentary films.
In the event’s last two decades, the festival has gained an extensive amount of recognition amongst other prestigious film festivals. By emphasising documentary films, DocPoint has become one of most significant film festivals in Europe. The 25th DocPoint will take place in February 2026.
In terms of audience, the attendance has increased from 6000 visitors to 2020’s count of 30 000 visitors. The number of films exhibited has varied from 110-170 films.The festival draws in many international professionals and masterpieces as well as young prospects.
DocPoint is one of the only events in Finland where people are able to view a large selection of the most prestigious documentaries today. The domestic lineup is composed out of the most recent national productions that premiere in the festival. Furthermore, the student work lineup New Finnish Visions brings forth the most recent student productions from national universities.
DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival was awarded the national art prize for film in 2024.
DOKKINO
DOKKINO – Documentary film event for children and youth
DOKKINO is a national film and media-literacy-education-tour providing learning materials for children in elementary and lower secondary school. The tour is produced by DocPoint-elokuvatapahtumat ry and reaches annually over 20 cities in some of the most remote areas in Finland as well. The aim is to introduce all the 4th to 9th-grade students into the creative world of documentary film and guide them to understand the narrative aspects in documents, as well as in feature films, news reports, social media and commercials. Moreover, the goal is to provide an experience of visiting a cinema, which is why the screenings are held in the local cinemas and often supplement the cinemas’ youth program. In addition to the tour of selected documentary shorts and the learning materials that are available online free of charge, DOKKINO provides documentary workshops for kids that are led by professional film makers. Reaching approximately 20 000 participants per year, DOKKINO-tour is the most extensive national film-tour for kids in Europe. In 2016 DOKKINO received recognition for its influential work and was granted a chidren’s culture award by the government.
DOKKINO came into being in 2002 from the DocPoint – Helsinki Documentary Film Festival’s commitment to allocate a lineup especially for the youth. In the following year the children and youth received their own series of films, and due to a large demand it expanded in 2005 to a separate production – a popular national tour.
DOKKINO is taking a brake 2026.
DocPoint IMPACT
DocPoint IMPACT
DocPoint IMPACT means effectivity and influential work that has a positive impact on our environment, health and society. We inevitably can make a difference as long as we view our environment with curiosity and without prejudice. What kind of a community do we live in? In what ways can we make this community better in the future?
We believe that the collaboration between communities, individuals and public administrations will achieve an impact-phenomenon. Therefore, DocPoint IMPACT aims to bring Nordic documentary film makers, various responsible organizations, science associations, sponsors, media representatives, politicians and activists together. Accordingly, these agencies and individuals can work together in grasping the future social issues and global challenges, with the best set of expertise and skill. By enabling participation, we enable change!
At the core, DocPoint IMPACT assembles groups out of different Finnish and Nordic documentary projects, agencies and individuals in order to strengthen these relationships and reinforce the work of civil societies. DocPoint IMPACT provides training to filmmakers and creates a valuable network for the film industry. The projects that will be selected to IMPACT should bring forth crucial themes within the Nordic culture. For the development of the network, IMPACT will underline agencies and individuals that have entrepreneurship skills, social agenda and a strong network in Finland and/or in other Nordic country.
DocPoint IMPACT contains three phases:
1. We offer film makers a chance to participate in our IMPACT-workshops, organized annually in Helsinki. Productions that have a Nordic producer may also apply for these workshops. We tend to select those productions, whose themes revolve around Nordic societies and will potentially strike up conversations, activities and campaigns. From the applied Finnish productions we will select at least four, because of DocPoint IMPACT’s objective to also advance Finnish documentary films’ viewpoints and significance within the international sphere.
2. In addition to the workshops DocPoint IMPACT will get together four times a year with the representatives of various organizations. These individuals combined will form “a planning group of good intentions” and will actively find new ways for documentary productions, active citizens and organizations to come together. Accordingly, a vast DocPoint IMPACT-web is born, targeting around 100 organizations on its first year.
3. Finally, the DocPoint IMPACT event that will be held once a year, will bring together these documentary filmmakers, these selected documentary projects and the various responsible organizations, foundations, science associations, scientists, sponsors, media representatives, politicians and activists – all of which carry a desire to work together for a better outcome and want to stress the importance of documentary films regarding social, national and environmental issues.
IMPACT is taking a brake in 2026.
Doc Lounge Helsinki
Doc Lounge Helsinki (2015—2020)
DocPoint Film Events organised the Doc Lounge Helsinki clubs from 2015 to 2020.
Doc Lounge Helsinki is a documentary film club that is part of the Nordic Doc Lounge network. The program of each evening always includes, for example, discussions, guest experts and directors, or music, in addition to a fresh and topical documentary film. Doc Lounge clubs are vibrant meeting places for everyone who enjoys documentary films, a good atmosphere, bar hangouts, music, and exciting conversations. For DocPoint, the clubs also offer a year-round channel for presenting the newest documentary films from both Finland and abroad.
The Doc Lounge Helsinki club was transferred to be produced by DocPoint-elokuvatapahtumat ry in 2015.
